A main reason cited by City Councilman Ikaika Anderson and other promoters of legalizing more B&Bs in our residential neighborhoods is to help old folks whose properties have appreciated from the approximately $30,000 original purchase price to $800,000-plus to pay their property taxes.

Anderson has also stated that he sincerely believes that our kamaäina families who were born and raised on their property, or had their property in their families for generations, have an inherent right to keep it.

At whose expense? Anderson's elitist view of protecting property wealth does not justify massive one-shot spot zoning of commercial resort businesses in our residentially zoned neighborhoods, which would greatly reduce the inventory of affordable homes and rentals for the common people.

The lucky old folks who have high equity in their homes and about whom Councilman Anderson is so worried have the alternative of getting a reverse mortgage. Or they can rent their available rooms to local long-term renters instead of tourists, which would be a more civic-minded alternative.

One of the effects of Bill 7 would be to push more and more people of Hawaiian ancestry farther inland, away from their connection to and rightful place near the sea.

URSULA RETHERFORD | Kailua

EDUCATION

LEADERS SILENT ON 2 IMMEDIATE ISSUES

Voices of Educators, a group of Hawaii's educational leaders, uses its latest installment in The Advertiser (Focus, Dec. 6) to praise innovations in the public schools. But that praise is suspect because student test scores remain depressed.

Although VOE claims to address "the important educational issues of the day," it is silent on two immediate educational issues. First, teacher furloughs will push the quality of public education even lower. Second, cuts to preschool subsidies for low- and moderate-income families will reduce access to education for a critical population.

Education leaders should be advocating for access to quality education and fighting to stop anything that will reduce it. Instead, Hawaii's education leaders appear to be too timid to face controversy. The tragedy of it all is that these issues will now be resolved by people who have priorities that are unrelated to the education of our children.

The VOE commentary used to appear on the front page of the Focus section. The latest installment appears on the last page. It would be no loss if it disappears altogether, as VOE is largely irrelevant.

JOHN KAWAMOTO | Honolulu

AFGHANISTAN

OBAMA STRATEGY WILL EMBOLDEN ENEMY

The Obama administration's misguided strategy on the war against terror and the Taliban in Afghanistan is not only wrong but is doomed to fail. In testimony before Congress this week, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said he's confident the strategy will succeed and he has the troops he needs. I disagree with this assessment. The 30,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan is far less than what McChrystal had originally recommended and requested. To set timetables and announce an early withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2011 not only gives the enemy an advantage but will embolden them to claim victory.

The Afghan army and police will not be ready to take over these combat responsibilities. The future of Afghani-stan looks bleak, and Obama's strategy will only weaken our domestic security.

AL EISNER | Silver Spring, Md.

SURF COVERAGE

LEAD STORY ONLINE WAS DISAPPOINTMENT

Thanks to a tip from a friend, I was able to witness the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau through my computer screen 5,000 miles away. Imagine: One of the world's most unique competitions. A contest that organizers refuse to run without waves massive enough to scare the boardshorts off of Neptune.

It was thrilling. It was astonishing. It was poetry.

I turned to the Advertiser that morning for more insight on an event, a sport and athletes that I know little about. I was shocked to find that the paper's lead story on the Eddie at least on the Web was about traffic and parking ("Towering Hawaii surf awes thousands at the Eddie at Waimea," Dec. 9). Yes, I'm sure it was total gridlock up there; yes, that's certainly worth a sidebar. But your lead story?

Talk about buzz-kill journalism.

DENNIS O'SHEA | Baltimore

WAR TAX

MODEST NATIONAL SALES TAX IS IDEAL

Mahalo to The Advertiser for publishing Charles A. Stevenson's informative commentary ("War tax means shared sacrifice," Dec. 8) showing us readers how America has funded its wars since the country formed in 1789.

The George W. Bush-era tax cuts are scheduled to expire this coming year. The increased revenues into the U.S. Treasury will begin to solve part of the problem, but our national debt is enormous, around $12 trillion. If market interest rates start to rise, then the government will be forced to pay increasingly larger amounts of taxpayers' money just to pay the interest on the national debt.

I favor a modest national sales tax piggybacked onto state sales taxes collected at many daily transactions.

PHIL ROBERTSON | Kailua

BULKY TRASH

MAYOR'S PROPOSAL IS NO FAIR SOLUTION

The mayor says the bulky item pickup process is a mess (he's right) and proposes to dump the responsibility for it on homeowners who happen to live where the stuff is dumped, saying he'll fine the unlucky homeowners $500 a day if trash is out before or after the assigned pickup date.

Some letter writers agree. I am a homeowner but my home happens to be a condo on the 20th floor surrounded by other similar buildings, and I beg to disagree.

I pay the same property tax rate as any other homeowner and expect the same city services in return as other homeowners, e.g., fire and police departments and trash pickup, to name just three.

I do not receive city trash pickup, but pay extra through my maintenance fees for private pickup services.

Neither I nor my homeowners association has any control over the scofflaws who do the midnight dumping that goes on. Now the mayor wants to me to pay for private security 24/7 to guard the city street fronting my complex.

The city does not fine the homeowner of a corner property for drivers who run a stop sign posted at the curb of the property nor does it require the owner to post a guard there.

I am hoping the City Council will disagree with the mayor's proposed "solution."

HANK MAGEE | Salt Lake